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Saturday, 27 April 2013

Introduction: The contexts of the text

A Hymn to the
Pillory has been described as ‘a work of genius’ and ‘undoubtedly one of
Defoe’s best poems’ by leading Defoe scholars[1].
Despite this the poem, a Pindaric ode, did not receive detailed attention until
2010 when Andreas K. E. Mueller published A
Critical Study of Daniel Defoe’s Verse.

A Hymn to the Pillory is situated within three
important contexts: the first is the context of the work's publication, as a
statement about the justice of Defoe's sentence for publishingThe Shortest Way with the
Dissenters; the second is the popular form of the irregular Pindaric ode,
made famous again in the seventeenth century by Abraham Cowley; and
the third is Defoe's other poetic works.

In December 1702 Daniel Defoe published a satirical
pamphlet, The Shortest Way with theDissenters. It was timed to coincide with the reading of a bill in the House
of Lords to prevent occasional conformity, which threatened the positions of
many dissenters. Despite disagreeing with occasional conformity, Defoe saw
larger ramifications for dissenters if it was passed. The pamphlet adopted the
voice of a member of the high church and in an ironic style condemned
dissenters, of whom Defoe was one. Defoe’s adoption of a high church personae
worked so well that members of the high church were fooled in to thinking that
it had been written by one of them and openly supported its suggestions that
‘this is the time to pull up this heretical weed of sedition, that has so long
disturbed the peace of our Church, and poisoned the good corn.’[2]
Defoe might have been pleased at an apparent change in public sympathies to
more moderate feelings towards dissenters in the wake of his publication. ‘William
King wrote that The Shortest Way led
“a great many well-meaning people” to believe that HighChurch
persecution was a reality, “to pity” the Dissenters, and “to side in some
measure with the moderate man.”’[3]

Despite these views however, many were angered and concerned by the opinions expressed in the work and also by the reactions that they evoked. A controversy broke out about the intentions and consequences of the pamphlet and
on the 14th December 1702 Robert Harley persuaded Sidney Godolphin
that the author of the pamphlet needed to be found. It did not take long before
Defoe was named by Edward Bellamy who had taken the manuscript to the printer
George Croome, and a warrant was issued for his arrest on the 3rd
January 1703.[4]
Defoe went into hiding and it wasn’t until 21st May that he was
caught. His trial opened on the 7th July and he ‘was sentenced to
stand in the pillory three times, to pay a fine of 200 marks, and to remain in Newgate
until he could find sureties of his good behaviour for seven years.’[5]
Defoe dreaded the pillory and agreed to divulge all that he knew that was of
interest to avoid that punishment alone. For Defoe the pillory was ‘seen as a
greater penalty than imprisonment or large fines.’[6]
The date of his punishment was deferred so that he could be questioned again,
but the information he provided was not enough for him to be excused and so on
the 29th July Daniel Defoe was brought for the first of three
successive appearances in the Hi’rolgyphick
State Machin.

Copies of A Hymn to
the Pillory were handed out to spectators, and instead of the usual rotten
fruit and vegetables ‘the only things thrown at him were flowers.’[7]
It would seem that he managed to subvert, at least in a small way, the
punishment that he feared, turning it to his advantage.

A Hymn to the
Pillory is written in the form of an
irregular Pindaric ode. In 1656 Abraham Cowley published his Pindarique Odes, and although not the
first poet to adopt an interpretation of Pindar’s style, he is best associated
with using the form. Irregular Pindaric Odes became a popular poetic form during
the seventeenth and eighteenth century. They misunderstood the formal features
of Pindar’s Odes which were based on structured triads of strophe, antistrophe and epode
with strict matching rhythms for corresponding lines in different stanzas.[8]
Irregular Pindaric Odes had free structures, with stanzas and lines of varying
length and usually with no formal rhyming scheme.

Despite the fact that Defoe was using the form of an ode,
he called his poem A Hymn to the Pillory.
The OED defines a hymn as ‘an ode or song of praise in honour of a diety, a
country, etc.’[9]
Defoe’s hymn was satirical, not praising the pillory or the corrupt authorities
that placed him there, but drawing attention to their biased and inconsistent
reaction to his ‘crime’. Owens notes a tendency in Pindar’s odes to ‘sometimes
celebrate the powers of Poetry itself.’[10]
Pindaric Odes relate the main subject of the ode to wider institutions within
the community, placing them within a larger context. Defoe does this in his hymn,
highlighting the larger context of greater crimes that had gone unpunished in
all major sectors of government, religion and the military. In this way he
‘demonstrate[s] the resources by which the poet may triumph over the pillory,
showing that it is the state that is on trial and the poet that is the
prosecutor.’[11]

Andreas K. E. Mueller adds to this arguing that

Defoe’s masterstroke was to extend his
sense of indignation to the wider community with one small but significant
authorial act: by calling his poem a hymn instead of an ode, Defoe invited his
fellow ‘worshippers’ of the pillory to join him in his song.[12]

Not only did Defoe manage to demonstrate the power of his
poetry, by calling his poem a hymn instead of an ode he makes the message more
communal. Despite Odes traditionally being communal, sung performances, the
religious connotations of a hymn, the act of worshipping a greater authority,
gives much more potency to the satire based on the subversive message of the poem and its disparate form.

Daniel Defoe’s
most famous poem is The True-Born
Englishman, another satire, mocking Englishmen who objected to King William
on the grounds that he was not English. This poem was his most commercially
successful and along with Jure Divino
these poems seem to be his most comprehensively represented. Defoe wrote nine
irregular Pindarics which he styled as hymns, of these A Hymn to the Pillory was his first, and arguably his best.

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